Three year old waking at night again, would a bed help?

[WillisTi]

We’re really struggling with boys sleep (he’s 3 now) at the moment and feeling pretty exhausted. For the last 6 weeks he hasn’t gone more than about 3 consecutive nights without waking in the night. Before this he was sleeping well, so this feels like a huge regression compared to anything we’ve dealt with before. We’ve tried quite a few things, including later bedtimes in case he was getting too much sleep, reward charts/treat jar for a “big sleep”, talking about how his friends have big sleeps, using the Groclock so he knows it’s still night time, making sure he’s had enough to eat before bed etc, but nothing really seems to be helping. We’re not fully sure what’s causing the wake ups. It could potentially be bad dreams, but when we go in he doesn’t seem terrified, more upset and unsettled. We can hear him on the monitor getting distressed, but not screaming. For context, he’s usually asleep around 7pm. He doesn’t nap during the day. The wake ups are normally around 2/3am and it’s usually once a night, although occasionally more than that. At bedtime his routine is still falling asleep on us in the chair before we transfer him into his cot bed. We’re wondering whether introducing a “big boy bed” and changing the bedtime approach might help? For example, after bath time getting him to climb into bed himself and reading stories there instead, and potentially removing the chair from the room. Our only worry is then him waking up and escaping from the room. We end up sitting with him on our knee in the chair for quite a while before trying to transfer him back into bed. Sometimes that works after 30 minutes or so, but other times she ends up lying next to him on the floor for up to 2 hours trying to settle him. We’ve also tried the more brief reassurance approach where we go in every few minutes, reassure him briefly, then leave again, but when we tried that it also seemed to drag on for hours without much improvement, although maybe we need to persevere with this more consistently? He’s still in his sleeping bag and cot bed and has never attempted to climb out. Up until recently he’s been a good sleeper. With our baby also not sleeping brilliantly at 9 months, we’re both just feeling pretty broken by it all at the moment and not really sure what the best approach is anymore, so would really appreciate any advice. Help!

Nobody can tell you for sure but a change may well help.
I do think that at 3 it isn’t going to be easy to change the bedtime routine with the cuddling to sleep etc and you will need to plane prepared to persevere if you want to change that.
Does he still have the sides on his cot bed? A bed with a duvet and pillow is pretty normal at this age, how will he come out of nappies overnight if he is still in a sleeping bag and can’t leave his bed if he needs a wee?

What stands out for me is that you’re cuddling him to sleep in a chair and then transferring. It may have worked well when he was younger but as they get older they notice more and I expect when he’s coming into light sleep in the early hours of the morning, which is totally normal, he’s noticing that he’s been moved and is wondering what the hell happened. Which you can’t blame him for- if you fell asleep on the sofa cuddled up with your partner and then stirred at 2am to find yourself all alone in bed I doubt you’d quietly roll over and go back to sleep either! So I’d look to tackle that, and it would probably be easier with a bed, a double would be great if you have space, for cuddling up and then do a bed guard and potentially also a stairgate on the door to stop wandering.

Definitely get him falling asleep in his own bed and yes, sure, an actual bed is a lot easier at this age. But waking once a night is very normal at this age. He is still only little. My youngest woke probably twice a week still until he was 6. It wasn’t most nights, but sure every 3-5 days, he might need some re-settling once a night. This isn’t unusual. You need to be going to bed and getting a full nights sleep. Bring him in to sleep with you if you need to. Put a mattress on the floor in your room if he’ll sleep there if getting up to re-settle him is too much. This is normal, but do what you can to make it as easy for you as possible.

We have had a tricky time with my daughters sleep as she has had health problems that have caused her pain and discomfort overnight meaning she's needed a lot of comfort at night to go to sleep and stay asleep.

She didn't reliably sleep through the night until nearly 5! At 3 she had a set back with her reflux which sent her back to newborn days screaming all night and only sleeping if someone was holding her upright and for 30-40 minutes at a time. Once we had her treatment reviewed and her reflux was under control again we addressed the sleep.

She was about 2 when we stopped the going to sleep in our room. We then settled by holding her but now in her room instead of ours.
Once she was ok with that we settled her in her bed. Then we moved to sitting next to the bed holding her and then not holding her. We went up and down these steps for quite a while making progress when she was well but when she was ill, or refluxing we went backwards. She could sleep through the night but she could also be up 4 times. Waking once a night was most common.

At 3.5 her reflux was better managed and she didn't get ill as much. We were then able to sit on the other side of the room and she would go to sleep on her own and she woke up once a night 2 or 3 times a week. Around 3 and 10 months the frequency of night waking start to increase again so we introduced guided meditation and the incentive of getting a mid rise bed with a den underneath for her birthday if she started sleeping through the night. She went to waking once a month.

At 5 and 2 months we went to putting her in bed and leaving her. She was ready for this probably 3 months earlier but I was pregnant and in and out of hospital.

She's a child who needs reassurances and never really learnt "self soothing" as a baby/toddler. My second by contrast has been able sooth himself since birth. He is 8 months and can sleep 11-7.